Theodore Robinson

Theodore Robinson

(1852-1896)

Theodore Robinson was born in Vermont to a minister and his wife, who moved to Wisconsin when he was three. He began his art studies in Chicago, but chronic asthma forced him to withdraw. In 1874 he moved to New York to study at the National Academy of Design. When the academy suspended classes in 1875, Robinson and a group of classmates founded the Art Students League. Robinson derived little benefit from the institution, however, and left for Paris the following year. He studied in the atelier of Carolus-Duran and under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He returned to the United States in 1879 and remained for five years, supporting himself primarily through teaching and decorative work while he saved enough money to return to Europe.

From 1887 to 1892 Robinson primarily lived in Giverny, where he frequently visited with his neighbor and friend Claude Monet. Under Monet’s influence, the young American integrated aspects of Impressionism with the academic principles of his training. While living in France, Robinson maintained close ties to the American art world and spent a few months of most years in New York. For his friends, especially John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and Will Low, he was an important conduit of information about the French avant-garde. After he returned permanently to the United States in December 1892, his compositions became stronger and more abstract, partly as a result of his enthusiastic study of Japanese prints. Robinson, who had battled poor health throughout his life, died in New York City at the age of forty-three.

Union Square, New York (Snowy Morning, Union Square), 1895

Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 5/8 in. (50.8 x 42.4 cm)

Signed (lower right): Th. Robinson

Gift of the Alix W. Stanley Estate (1954.26)

Union Square, New York

The New Britain painting is probably the third of five that Robinson executed of Union Square1(1). The artist lived nearby, at 11 East Fourteenth Street, in a neighborhood where many musicians, actors, and artists--including Childe Hassam--had studios. Although the broad theme of Robinson’s painting had modern, cosmopolitan overtones, this section of Manhattan resonated with American tradition for Robinson and his contemporaries. The equestrian monument that dominates the painting, Henry Kirke Brown’s “George Washington”, was New York’s first outdoor bronze sculpture. Its original site, depicted in the New Britain painting, was the intersection of Broadway and Fourteenth Street, marking the spot where Washington, as commander of the Continental Army, had officially reclaimed the city from the British on November 25, 1783. Public pride in the sculpture was so ardent that an estimated four thousand people watched its installation in 1856.2(2)

Apart from its patriotic significance, the subject had, for Robinson, an added advantage: the principal “model” would pose indefinitely. During the period that he was working on the New Britain painting, Robinson jotted down his reflections prompted by an equestrian sculpture by Paul Bartlett. “I must, or I am lost, make a big effort . . . to get models--men and animals that I can have long enough,” he wrote in his diary.3(3)

Other elements of the painting--the blurred figures of hurrying pedestrians and the swirl of falling snow--convey the ceaseless motion of city life. This cinematic effect resulted largely from Robinson’s use of photographs as compositional aids. He scribbled in his diary on January 29, 1895, “Took two snap-shots this morning of Washington Monument--snowing at the time. Later it cleared off. Painted an impression of the morning.” Six days later, he again set his easel near the busy intersection, as he noted on February 4: “Cold--worked on my Union Sq. ‘Wash. Mon’ upright, snowing.” The next time he recorded work on the painting was March 8: “Beautiful spring-like tho’ gray day. Worked a little (a very little) on my Snowy Morning, Union Sq.” The artist submitted the canvas to the National Academy of Design annual exhibition as “Snowy Morning, Union Square”. After visiting the exhibition on April 2, he wrote in his diary with characteristic self-criticism, “My Wash. Monument, snow, isn’t altogether bad--the snow-flakes, some of them, are impossibly long.” The elongated snowflakes undoubtedly derive from the photographs he used.4(4)

Two of Robinson's Union Square paintings, both lost, also depict the Washington Monument. A small oil on board (private collection) depicts strollers inside the park, while the focal point of the another canvas (private collection) is an empty park bench. Referring to the latter work, Robinson wrote in his dairy on January 23, 1894: “Worked on my Union Sq. looking down B’way--and hope it will be a success. I will have a pair of Union Sq. pictures.” In fact, he returned three times to the theme of the equestrian sculpture in the snow.

SGL

Selected References and Notes:

Theodore Robinson, Diaries, 1892-96, Frick Art Reference Library, New York; John I. H. Baur, “Theodore Robinson”, exhib. cat. (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1946); Sona Johnston, “Theodore Robinson, 1852-1896”, exhib. cat. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1973); Bev Harrington and William Kloss, “The Figural Images of Theodore Robinson, American Impressionist”, exhib cat. (Oshkosh, Wisc.: Paine Art Center and Arboretum, 1987); Susan G. Larkin, “Light, Time, and Tide: Theodore Robinson at Cos Cob,” “American Art Journal 23”, no. 2 (1991): 74-108.

Notes:

1. On Union Square, see William H. Gerdts, “Impressionist New York” (New York: Abeville Press, 1994),pp.71-75: and H. Barbara Weinberg, Doreen Bolger, and David Park Curry, “American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life”, 1885-1915, exhib. Cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994),pp. 184-88.

2. Wayne Craven, “Sculpture in America” (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1894),p.152. Because of increased traffic around the Union Square, the sculpture was eventually moved to its present site inside the park.

3. All direct quotes by the artist are taken from Theodore Robinson Diasries, 1892-96. Frick Art Reference Library, New York.

4. William Kloss observes that the long snowflakes evince the duration of time but does not attribute this effect to Robinson’s use of photography (Kloss, Figural Images, p.38)